Editorial: Only determined focus, from statehouse to schoolhouse, will fix lagging reading scores

CBC Editorial: Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019; Editorial #8482
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.

No matter how you look at the latest findings on student reading and math performance from the National Assessment of Education Progress the message is clear:

Too many North Carolina school children – even more kids nationwide – are not acquiring the basic reading skills they need to be good learners.

By one measure in the recently released report, known as the “Nation’s Report Card” a third of fourth grade students cannot read at the “basic” level – they have not mastered the basic knowledge and skills for reading. In 2015 it was slightly less than a quarter.

By another measure a full two-thirds are not “proficient” – meaning they haven’t “demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter” so they can comprehend what they read and apply it to “real-world situations.”

It would be too easy to just point the finger at the General Assembly and its seven-year-old “Read to Achieve” program that has cost taxpayers more than $150 million and under-performed.

But the problem – and most importantly the solution – isn’t merely a question of legislation; gubernatorial or education bureaucratic leadership. While those elements are important, it is far more basic.

The inability to significantly increase the portion of students who, by the time they are in the fourth grade, have the basic skills to be good learners, represents a lack of determination and focus at the local level of education on up.

Is the current level of performance acceptable? Absolutely not. Instead of, over time, more students doing better, more children are missing out.

What more evidence is needed to show that North Carolina’s support of public education is both woefully inadequate as well as misdirected.

This is a crisis. Our education leaders – from the principals’ office and the local school board to the state Board of Education and the superintendent of public instruction – must act. It is their constitutional duty to give every child an equal opportunity for a quality education.

Our courts ruled – more than 22 years ago in the landmark Leandro case – that the state failed in that obligation. Even with a court order, our leaders have fallen so short of their duty that the courts again are preparing to issue fresh directives. At the same time Gov. Roy Cooper’s has a commission working in parallel so the state is poised to move when the court acts.

Our leaders need to engage more directly with those who REALLY know about the challenges students face. They cannot tolerate failure on the current scale.

Good managers, when faced with failures to perform in their organizations, first turn to those on the front lines. Why aren’t they able to accomplish their tasks? Do they lack the materials or time? Do they lack the training? Are their efforts spread too thin (in school, too many students per class, lack of teacher assistants)?

Passing the blame and embracing ethereal fads isn’t teaching any more kids to read.

It is time for officials from the schoolhouse to the statehouse to be focused and determined. Hire great managers. Provide clear, reasonable goals.  Give managers the authority and resources they need to get the job done.  No more and no less.

Act now!

(NOTE: The conclusion of this editorial was updated following its initial posting.)